Shaquille O'Neal traded to Cleveland

Cavs land Shaq for Wallace, Pavlovic


Cavs land Shaq for Wallace, Pavlovic

By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports and Johnny Ludden
Yahoo! Sports

The Cleveland Cavaliers have reached an agreement in principle to acquire Phoenix Suns center Shaquille O’Neal(notes), a league source told Yahoo! Sports late Thursday night.

Cleveland will send Ben Wallace(notes), Sasha Pavlovic(notes), the 46th pick in Thursday’s draft and cash to the Suns for O’Neal.

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A good trade for both sides. Cleveland addresses their frontcourt woes (at least for the short term, although it would appear that Shaq wants a two year extension and a guarantee that LeBron James will resign with the team) and the Suns, who are trying to save money and cut costs, drop Shaq's 21 million dollar contract.

This definitely makes the Cavs better than they were last year, as an aging Ben Wallace and an inconsistent and ineffective Sasha Pavlovic were not huge parts of the team last year. However, they will need to make more moves this offseason. It will be interesting to see what happens on draft night, as well as what happens via free agency, where they have been linked to Charlie Villanueva and Rasheed Wallace in multiple rumors and speculative articles.

Wow, this is a blockbuster move in classic Danny Ferry fashion, bringing in another vet.

I'm not surprised this trade was made and I totally understand why Ferry made this move. He needs to upgrade the talent around LeBron ASAP before he decides to stay or leave Cleveland. Boom or bust, he's definitely not a long term fix.

When Shaq's contract expires, though, there is speculation that he's positioning himself to return to LA in order to finish out his career.

The Central can become very interesting next season.

The thing is, I wonder how well Shaq and LeBron will coexist on and off the court and how well will Mike Brown be able to manage Shaq? I believe he still sees himself as the man, and may treat LeBron as a sidekick a la the young Kobe and DWade.

Time will tell.

Piston Boris wrote:Wow, this is a blockbuster move in classic Danny Ferry fashion, bringing in another vet.

I'm not surprised this trade was made and I totally understand why Ferry made this move. He needs to upgrade the talent around LeBron ASAP before he decides to stay or leave Cleveland. Boom or bust, he's definitely not a long term fix.

When Shaq's contract expires, though, there is speculation that he's positioning himself to return to LA in order to finish out his career.

The Central can become very interesting next season.

The thing is, I wonder how well Shaq and LeBron will coexist on and off the court and how well will Mike Brown be able to manage Shaq? I believe he still sees himself as the man, and may treat LeBron as a sidekick a la the young Kobe and DWade.

Time will tell.

Shaq and LeBron are already friends, so I don't see too many problems coexisting off the court. Shaq does have an ego, but by now he surely understands that he is in the twilight of his career and this is his last chance to win another ring before he retires. I would imagine that he will be the third option on this team behind Mo Williams. Mike Brown and LeBron should be able to keep Shaq's ego in check.

One thing the Cavs absolutely should NOT do, however, is bring in Rasheed Wallace. With Zydrunas Ilgauskas and now Shaq splitting time at center, they have arguably the oldest frontcourt in the league. They should instead look to bring in someone like Charlie Villanueva.

Oh, and for the record, here's just how much of a thief Danny Ferry is... their major trades over the past two years have consisted of:

Cavs trade:

Damon Jones
Ben Wallace
Sasha Pavlovic
46th overall pick
$500,000 cash

Cavs receive:

Mo Williams
Shaquille O'Neal


Sounds like a pretty good trade off to me.

Cavalier Marcus wrote:Shaq and LeBron are already friends, so I don't see too many problems coexisting off the court. Shaq does have an ego, but by now he surely understands that he is in the twilight of his career and this is his last chance to win another ring before he retires. I would imagine that he will be the third option on this team behind Mo Williams. Mike Brown and LeBron should be able to keep Shaq's ego in check.

One thing the Cavs absolutely should NOT do, however, is bring in Rasheed Wallace. With Zydrunas Ilgauskas and now Shaq splitting time at center, they have arguably the oldest frontcourt in the league. They should instead look to bring in someone like Charlie Villanueva.

Oh, and for the record, here's just how much of a thief Danny Ferry is... their major trades over the past two years have consisted of:

Cavs trade:

Damon Jones
Ben Wallace
Sasha Pavlovic
46th overall pick
$500,000 cash

Cavs receive:

Mo Williams
Shaquille O'Neal


Sounds like a pretty good trade off to me.

Ferry's managed to unload some dead weight alrighty.

Mo's a good 3/4th option, but not truly a major second option/Scottie Pippen to LeBron's Jordan. Having LeBron as a teammate helped elevate his game, but he got handcuffed in the playoffs this year.

If we're talking the Shaq of even 2004-2006, Cleveland would definitely have added a force to its team. The jury's out on Shaq in the twilight of his career. He wasn't expected to do as well as he did last season. IMHO, it's a gamble to expect him to do as well this year. But considering that Ferry couldn't get young major frontcourt talent, Shaq was the best option open to him.

I'd definitely take an aging Shaq over an aging Ben Wallace. The problem is he's aging.